In the early morning of the next day, before it was clear, more than a dozen generals and colonels including Liu Zhi, Xu Tingyao, Cai Zhonghu, and An Yi had quietly stationed in the wide bunker of the front-line command post, looking at the front of the silent position, listening to the neighing of war horses from behind their own positions, and everyone was very nervous and full of expectations.

The dry north wind whistled the trees in the wild, and a glimmer of light appeared in the eastern sky, and the overlapping clouds were dyed golden by the rising sun.

Suddenly, the silence was broken by the rumbling sound of cannonballs, and the screams of rapidly flying cannonballs drowned out all the sounds on the ground, and in the blink of an eye, all the places in front and behind the positions of their own side became billowing smoke and dust, and the grass and trees were splashed, and the thick smoke quickly dispelled the light that had just been sprinkled, and the radius of several kilometers was once again shrouded in darkness.

The sudden and large-scale artillery bombardment of the enemy continued, and the command post was completely enveloped in gunsmoke, and it was impossible to see at all, and the violent explosions from far and near continued endlessly, and the dirt above the bunker was sprinkled one after another, and all the cadres and colonels in the bunker were dyed with natives.

The communications staff officer shouted desperately into the telephone in the deepest corner, asking if there had been a fierce battle with the enemy in the various positions and units of the front? An Yi listened attentively and found that except for the explosions from mountain artillery, artillery and mortar shells, he did not hear the sound of light and heavy machine gun fire.

An Yi thought about it and was not at ease, so he got out of the bunker and lay on the edge of the trench, looking hard at the front position that covered the sky, pricking up his ears and quietly listening to the various sounds coming from the north wind.

A few minutes later, An Yi slid down the trench and returned to the command post, ran to Xu Tingyao and Liu Zhi, who were covering their mouths and noses and observing the front, and asked loudly:

"The enemy has launched such an artillery bombardment for such a long time, which has never been done in many years, is it that the enemy is about to charge our position?"

"What-"

The dense explosion made Xu Tingyao unable to hear what An Yi was talking about at all.

Liu Zhi, who was calm and composed, heard a general idea, and instead asked the disgraced An Yi loudly: "Did you hear the sound of machine guns and shouts of killing?" ”

"No! It's been shelling continuously for more than ten minutes, and nothing else has moved, is the enemy fucking crazy? An Yi shouted in confusion.

Liu Zhi wiped his face, turned to the observation port and stared laboriously at the front of the gunsmoke, and after a while, the sound of the cannon gradually thinned, and the smoke still did not disperse, but Liu Zhi suddenly figured out something, turned around and shouted loudly: "Not good!" The enemy is fleeing! ”

The generals and colonels in the command post were taken aback, Cai Zhonghu listened to the sparse whistling of shells and explosions, and asked with some doubts: "Won't it?" With such a fierce artillery fire, and the time was as long as seventeen minutes, why didn't you attack but fled? ”

"Oops...... I can't explain it to you for a while, but I'm right! ”

Liu Zhi was so anxious that he turned around in two and a half circles, and shouted at Staff Officer Chen, who came to his side: "Pass my order, and all of you will charge Tonglu City!" Fast! ”

"Yes......"

Staff Officer Chen hurriedly ran to the inside and shouted orders to a group of communications officers and soldiers, and seven or eight telephones were immediately sounded, quickly transmitting Liu Zhi's orders to various positions.

After a while, there was an earth-shattering shout from the position several kilometers ahead, and the charge horn was transmitted to the headquarters one after another, Liu Zhi strode out of the command post, and the generals and colonels also followed Liu Zhi and swarmed out, seeing An Yi running from the corner of the trench fifty meters away, his face was full of joy.

Liu Zhi's heart was relieved, and he asked with a smile, "When did you run out?" ”

"After listening to the judgment of the division, the subordinates felt that it was very reasonable, and immediately rushed to the back of the mountain without caring about anything, and informed the brothers of the model battalion and the second and third battalions of our regiment to take the lead in the charge.

After An Yi finished speaking, he lay on the edge of the trench, took out his binoculars and looked intently, scolding his mother with joy while watching.

Liu Zhi and the others didn't have time to say anything, they all threw themselves on the edge of the trench and looked north, seeing that the revolutionary officers and soldiers who were swarming forward did not encounter any resistance, and the gunshots that came were also sparse, and they immediately understood that the enemy defending Tonglu had really fled, otherwise they would never have let the revolutionary army rush to the city without resistance.

Sure enough, as Liu Zhi expected, the seventeen-minute artillery attack just now turned out to be really the Tonglu defenders in order to cover the escape of the large army, the generals praised the division commander's rich experience, and also realized that General Bai Chongxi's strange plan worked, Meng Zhaoyue and Sun Chuanfang's headquarters in Xindeng City must have been easily taken by the three divisions of the friendly army, directly threatening the retreat of more than 40,000 defenders in Tonglu, forcing the defenders of Tonglu to abandon the city in panic and flee, otherwise there would definitely be no abnormal phenomenon in front of them.

Cai Zhonghu put away the binoculars and came to An Yi's side, and stabbed An Yi, who was engrossed in observing the front: "You kid is fast enough, it is your three battalions that rush to the front, and the explosion that blew up the city gate just now is scary enough...... I ask you, what are you anxious about at this point? ”

An Yi saw that no one was paying attention to him, and immediately put it in Cai Zhonghu's ear and whispered: "Big brother, it's not fun to let other brother groups rush in first, where will there be little brother's oil and water at that time?" I let Chen Zhibiao's third battalion rush in to control the enemy's headquarters, yamen, barracks, arsenal, opium smoke house and other important facilities in the city, and let Ji Nan and Lao Ye lead the model battalion and the second battalion brothers to immediately chase after the fleeing enemy, and capture and pursue both the enemy and the pursuit, otherwise where would the benefits come from? ”

Cai Zhongwat laughed when he heard this, pointed at An Yi and praised in a low voice: "Lao Tzu is convinced of you, and you have become an old ruffian by calling all the way, haha!" I thought you were going to plant the battle flags of the Model Battalion and your Reading Force Regiment on the city tower, but it turns out that you kid is so tricky. ”

"Don't worry, the warriors of the brother army will soon plant their battle flags all over the city, the vast majority of the main regiments take their reputation very seriously, what about the younger brother, take the interests a little more seriously, especially in this battle, it doesn't make much sense to fight for the battle flag to be planted in the head of an empty city, at most, it will get two sentences of praise at the post-war summary meeting, and the feat of Senior Brother Chen Mingren during the Eastern Expedition to insert the battle flag to the head of Huizhou City, how can it be compared? Ha ha...... Let's go too, they can't wait, and they are in a hurry to step into the city with their heads up as victors, how about it is also something to be proud of, haha! ”

An Yi put away the binoculars, pulled Cai Zhonghu, who was extremely emotional, and followed the enthusiastic general down the mountain together.

At seven o'clock in the morning, Hu Zi, Qu Muchen, Xia Jian, and Gu Changfeng stood on the high ground at the foot of Baizhang Mountain and talked in a low voice, and saw a team of sentries sent to the front to guard coming from afar, everyone immediately raised their binoculars and looked at the south, only to see that the dust was flying for several kilometers to the south, and the noise was faintly coming, and everyone immediately realized that the fleeing enemy was really coming.

A group of sentries galloped to the high post where the beard stood and reported loudly: "About three thousand enemy troops are surging from south to north, and in front are more than a company of cavalry, about two kilometers from our position. ”

The beard nodded slightly: "Good coming!" Go down and rest. ”

"Yes!"

Hu Zi shouted an order to the herald under the hill: "Staff Officer Lu, immediately inform the captain of Chu Xianzhi at the eastern pass, and if you see the enemy's advance rushing within 300 meters, immediately detonate the eastern pass!" ”

"Yes!"

Hu Zi turned to the excited Gu Lao Er and Xia Jian: "You go back to your position and command, hide and put the enemy about one hundred and fifty meters and then beat him violently, as soon as your guns go out, I will let the sixty mortars behind the formation blow up the enemy's formation into two sections, don't worry that the enemy will rush to the position if there are too many enemies too close." ”

"Yes!"

As the minutes passed, the vanguard cavalry of the enemy, who had taken the lead in abandoning the city, galloped in two directions, numbering as many as two companies of cavalry, the sound of rumbling horses' hooves echoed in the valley, and the neighing of horses was clearly audible.

The enemy army is getting closer and closer, gradually entering the field of vision, after the cavalry dragged into two black pressure long dragons running desperately, when the enemy's vanguard rushed along the foot of the stretching mountain to the east pass about 300 meters, a loud "boom" sounded, the earth trembled, the broken stone and wood were sent into the air by the violent explosive force, and then fell like rain, smashing the dozens of cavalry who rushed in front too late to stop, and the scorching air flow roared out, knocking down all the cavalry within a radius of 100 meters.

The rolling boulders and a large number of soil layers above the pass fell down violently, and in a blink of an eye, the road more than six meters wide in the east pass was buried, and the stones and remnants of snow that fell sharply down the mountain were still falling in the pass, piled up layer upon layer, and it was enough to be ** meters high.

The sound of the explosion was still echoing in the wilderness, and the Baizhang Mountain position in the west and the high ground in the back mountain on the riverside suddenly opened fire, and the mortar positions several hundred meters behind the position roared closely, and the dense rain of bullets and locust-like shells fell on the panicked and screaming enemy group, and soon cut the enemy troops fleeing north along the riverside road into two sections.

The enemy troops were attacked head-on, retreated rapidly, throwing down nearly 1,000 corpses and nearly 100 wounded horses and rushing to the rear, but the enemy who fled in the dark and oppressive in the rear had already followed, blocking the retreating enemy in an area of more than 800 meters in front of the position.

Seeing this, Hu Zi once again gave a decisive order, and the 60 concentrated mortars under the command of Captain Company Commander Shi Junren again fired a salvo to extend the coverage, and the six rounds of shells fired in a row accurately fell into the enemy group, exploding the dense fleeing enemy ghosts and howling wolves, and killing and wounding countless people.

The fleeing enemy, who was dazed by the bombing in the confusion, threw everything behind and rushed to the river bank like a tidal wave, and the enemy generals who were running in front quickly jumped onto the ferry on the small pier and fled desperately to the west bank.

On the west bank, the officers and men of the 21st Division, who had completed the Xindeng raid, were rushing from north to south, and Chen Cheng, the division commander in the ranks, and Chen Cheng, the deputy division commander, were very surprised when they heard the fierce explosions and dense machine gun fire on the east bank when they were two kilometers away from the ferry. Previously, General Bai Chongxi's order to the 21st Division was: Just block the enemy's escape route on the west bank of Tonglu, and let the enemy flee down the river by water or along the east bank avenue to the north, and when tens of thousands of fleeing enemies flee to the south of Fuyang and are exhausted, they will find that all the back roads have been occupied by our army and become a turtle in an urn, and there is only one way to abandon their weapons and surrender.

Just when the officers and men of the 21 st Division rushed to the predetermined blocking point one after another, nearly 3,000 fleeing enemies had already successfully landed on the west bank, and both sides were startled by the sudden encounter, and the officers and men of the 21 st Division immediately opened fire and opened fire, and then launched a charge, killing and wounding hundreds of fleeing enemies who did not even know where to throw them to rob, and drove the enemy who landed on the shore off the embankment in one fell swoop, hundreds of enemy officers and men rolled down the river and drowned in a blink of an eye, and more than 2,000 fleeing enemies knelt down and surrendered in front of the swarming thousands of revolutionary officers and men.

The more than 30,000 fleeing enemies who were blocked on the east bank were shocked to hear that the retreat route had been cut off, and the confusion was even greater, and the shrewd people threw down their baggage and broke away from the troops, rushed into the villages and docks on the shore, and snatched fishing boats and wooden rafts to escape by waterway. However, as many as 10,000 enemy troops successfully rushed through the waterway blocked by the revolutionary army and desperately rowed to Fuyang downstream, but everyone did not know that General Tan Daoyuan's Fifth Division had already followed General Bai Chongxi's order and led his troops to lay a net of heaven and earth in the section of the river south of Fuyang and the mouth of the avenues on both sides of the river.

In the north of Tonglu City, more than 10,000 revolutionary officers and men of the Reading Regiment of the Second Division, the Fourth Regiment, and the 65th Regiment of the 22nd Division passed through the city, going all out to pursue the fleeing enemy.

Seeing this situation, the officers and men of the Model Battalion and the Second Battalion of the Reading Regiment, who were in the lead, were in high spirits and full of fighting spirit, and Yin Jinan, who was on the horse, raised his horse pistol, signaled his brothers to stop the pursuit, and ordered all the guns to be loaded and pointed forward to open a distance, and quietly aimed their weapons at the enemy who was scattered in front of them.

With Yin Jinan's loud roar, the officers and soldiers of the model battalion and the second battalion shouted in unison, slowly advancing, the shout of "surrender the gun and don't kill, give preferential treatment to the prisoners" shook the four fields, the enemy's fighting spirit collapsed instantly, the east was the vast mountain, and the right was the surging river, and thousands of enemy troops who had nowhere to escape were all lost, so they could only throw down their weapons and raise their hands to surrender.

The officers and men of the 4th Regiment and the 65th Regiment immediately imitated this situation, and the roar of "surrender the gun and not kill" rose higher and higher, and more and more enemy troops surrendered.

Hu Zi and Qu Muchen saw that the enemy was far away from their position and did not dare to approach again, so after a little discussion, they immediately selected more than 200 officers and soldiers from Jiangsu and Zhejiang from the four teaching companies, and under the cover of the brothers of Xia Jian's first battalion and the regiment's machine gun company, they walked out of the position in unison and shouted "surrender the gun and don't kill", and within a kilometer, as many as 400 prisoners threw down their weapons and took the initiative to surrender, the Revolutionary Army treats prisoners preferentially—"

The severity of the river separation and Chen Cheng looked at the east bank dumbfounded, the officers and soldiers of the 21st Division almost all stood on the shore and looked eastward, they could not have imagined that tens of thousands of enemy troops would be intercepted by life before they escaped from Tonglu City 20 kilometers, listening to the earth-shattering Jiangsu and Zhejiang accents to persuade them to surrender, watching a group of prisoners walk towards the battle flag flying high and take the initiative to surrender their guns, and then they were gathered by the officers and soldiers of An Yi's Reading Force Regiment to strictly guard them, but none of them fled to the west bank that they intercepted, and the brothers of the 21st Division were very shocked and very uncomfortable.

Seriously shook his head, and said helplessly: "It's still a good chess game for Brother Jingfu!" Unexpectedly, tens of thousands of defending enemies were blocked, but I don't know how they made a detour behind Tonglu? And it's hard to believe that the blocking battlefield is so well chosen! ”

Chen Cheng smiled: "Brother Jingfu is a square person, where can he be so tricky?" This must be the masterpiece of An Yi's guy, that guy's shrewdness and calculation have long been rumored in our army, and he has never seen him suffer a loss, it must be because he saw Commander Bai's strategy, so he dared to take the risk of setting up an ambush here to intercept him.

It is said that this guy will scavenge a sum of money every time he fights, and his officers and soldiers have long developed the habit of plucking the feathers of geese, and even the better shoes on the corpses of the enemy are not spared, so his troops are richer than any other army, and the food of the officers and soldiers is the first-class in the whole army, to be honest, I envy this guy, but we can't learn this trick, haha! ”

He shook his head seriously, sighed slightly, thought of something and asked, "You say, will Commander Bai blame An Yi or the Second Division for this?" ”

Chen Cheng smiled again: "If you win the battle, you will be blamed, do you think it is possible?" We were also urgently transferred to Yangchunqiao Town to make such a big circle to raid the headquarters behind the enemy, but Commander-in-Chief Bai ordered our division to conquer Xindeng and immediately go south to block it, and ordered the Fifth Division to immediately capture Fuyang, but he did not order us not to take the opportunity to expand the results of the battle.

Similarly, Commander-in-Chief Bai ordered the Second Division to attack the city with all its might, and did not order the Second Division to stop pursuing and arresting prisoners after occupying the city. I just didn't expect An Yi to be so bold and so beautiful, it seems that this time we can only watch this guy get rich. Look at them, two or three battalions of troops have captured tens of thousands of prisoners, and there are so many weapons, they are almost piled up! ”

Looking at the boiling scene on the east coast seriously, listening to the command of the officers and soldiers of the Reading Force Regiment to concentrate on the prisoners, he shook his head again and again and said helplessly: "Alas, the ship is gone, otherwise, with the good relationship between you and An Yi, it would be good to ask them to ask them for the prisoners to come back." ”

Chen Cheng's heart moved, and immediately strode to the shore, his hands formed into a trumpet and shouted, the guard sentry of the teaching company of the Reading Force Regiment on the opposite bank heard the voice, and saw a short general of the friendly army calling loudly, and after hearing it clearly, he did not dare to slack off, and immediately ran to report to Hu Jialin, the deputy of the regiment.

Hu Jialin heard that General Chen Cheng, an old acquaintance on the other side, shouted, and gave a few simple explanations to Gu Lao Er and immediately followed the sentry to the shore, and the two communicated loudly across the river, Hu Zi readily agreed, and loudly suggested that Chen Cheng go down about 1.5 kilometers along the river, there is a fork in the river, and it is estimated that there are boats in the wide bay.

In less than an hour, Chen Cheng really got eight large and small wooden boats, and after crossing over to meet with Hu Zi affectionately, he praised Hu Zi's reconnaissance work well, and even knew clearly about a fork in the river a few hundred meters.

After chatting a few words, the two walked together in a half-circle around the pile of prisoners with great interest, and at Chen Cheng's request, Hu Zi instructed Qu Muchen to draw out 4,000 prisoners and hand them over to the brothers of the 21st Division.

Chen Cheng thanked him repeatedly, and after a happy order, he ordered his men to lead the 4,000 captives to the shore to cross the west bank, and it took more than three hours to send all the 4,000 captives over.

When Chen Cheng turned around, he found that more than 10,000 people on the east bank had already marched south, and only half of the tail of the team was seen.

(To be continued)